White Sands

Post office in Truth or Consequences, NM.  T or C was originally called Hot Springs, due to the local therapeutic hot springs.  In 1950, NBC radio quiz show host Ralph Edwards started a contest to name one town in America after his show, Truth or Consequences.  Hot Springs won and changed its name and has never looked back.  T or C is a small town with about 7,000 people and seems to have a vibrant art scene, with many sculptures and colorful buildings downtown.

White Sands National Monument in Alamogordo is completely surrouned by White Sands Missile Range, the site of the Trinity test on July 16, 1945.  The Trinity test was the first ever use of the atomic bomb.  Tours are given twice a year to ground zero.  Also, various signs throughout the range warn about possible contamination due to weapons tests.  The missile range is also three times the size of Rhode Island and the military occasionally closes roads and/or the National Monument to conduct tests.

The jagged Organ Mountains located in between Las Cruces and Alamogordo.  Las Cruces is the second largest city in New Mexico, with about 100,000 residents.  It is also home to New Mexico State University.  The Organ Needle (8,980 ft.) is the highest point in the Organ Mountains.

I'm probably building an FBI rap sheet just standing here in this picture.

Pretty trippy.  Our car got stopped by immigration since we were not too far from the Mexican border.  Once we got to the park, we saw this amazing sight.  Many people went sledding down the white sand dunes.  We just had fun running/sliding up and down them.  Also, by going on the harder 2-mile hike, we didn't see too many people so it felt really isolated.

Various views of the dunes.

Climbing...

...and falling.

My friend and I looking cool.

At the top of a dune.

More posing.

Random Yucca plant.

Awesome patterns in the sand.

Posing at the border with Mexico in El Paso, TX.  El Paso (pop. 650,000) is one of the safest towns in America.  Home to Fort Bliss, UTEP, and a large Mexican population, it has an eclectic population.  Across the Rio Grande is Ciudad Juárez, Mexico (pop. 1.3 million).  I definitely didn't risk taking too many pictures near the border with all the security.  No need getting in trouble with Homeland Security or the DEA.  In contrast with the uber-safe El Paso, the Houston Chronicle and Norte newspaper named Juárez "the most violent zone in the world outside of declared war zones."  As the front of the Mexican drug war (between rival gangs Juárez Cartel and Sinaloa Cartel), thousands of disappearances, drug-related deaths, grisly and barbaric murders, and other unsolved crimes have earned the city a reputation from sources such as the Huffington Post, CBS, and MSNBC as one of the murder capitals of the world and most dangerous/violent city, ahead of cities such like Grozny (in Chechnya!), Caracas, Mogadishu (Somalia), and Port-au-Prince (Haiti).  Oh, and yes, I did cross into Juárez for about 5 minutes just to see the checkpoints.  Pretty safe in that part of town.

The first thing you see getting into the United States is this sign.  Texas really does have a strong personality.

T or C on the way back.